OGRE 3D Programming

The OGRE 3D graphics engine has become real popular in open source game development, and meanwhile is an alternative for some commercial developers, who already using it. A notable thing is the good documentation about the engine, a friendly community, and even now a book - Pro OGRE 3D Programming (2006). In my opinion this makes the position of OGRE very clear as a constant among (FOSS) 3D graphics rendering engines.

Windows & Linux Game Programming

This book about Windos & Linux game programming is hard to find. It's not old, but doesn't seem to be very popular. I would be interested anyway, but Amazon doesn't sell it anymore.

Windows and Linux Game Programming: Integrating SDL, OpenGL, and Direct X

Step into the Third Dimension

Todays games without amazig 3d graphics seem to be like toy games made by newbie developers. Well this is not my opinion, but after mastering the 2d stuff any serious game developer should jump into the 3d world. But before writing your own 3d engine consider the pros and cons, and maybe have a glance on some stable, existing engines.

For many people the finest open source 3d engine is OGRE. To some people it is not a complete engine, because it lacks typical features of an engine (as physics, networking, etc.), but OGRE definitely has an amzing renderer. Beginners often complain about complexity, ugly documentation, but OGRE has a very nice community. It's suitable for cross-platform development.

Another popular open source 3d engine is Irrlicht. It's is a well designed engine, easy to use, and thanks to the BSD license great for modifications. Some will say it's not as powerful and slow, but this may be perfect for beginners or simpler things. Also Irrlicht has a good community, and is suitable for cross-platform development.

The next one open source 3d engine is Crystal Space. It is the most complete open source 3d engine out there, but is not easy to use. They have a very friendly community, and is also suitable for cross-platform development.

Once crafted by Disney now Panda3D became open source. Well, what to say else than this is another great engine. It is simple to use, and suitable for cross-platform development.

Next one of the open source and cross-platform 3d engine is the Nebula Device. It's a powerful and complex 3d engine, but maybe isn't easy to use because it lacks community and tutorials. It already found its way into commercial game development.

The last of the open source 3d engines I review is OpenSceneGraph. It's also a well designed engine.

Well of course there are many more 3d engines. In fact it seems like there are as many as game programmers. Many of them are open source, but some developers say, they are not suitable for the development of commercial games. For sure there are some commercial engines available, as Torque or some other, but I'm not sure in which way they are superior - since I'm using Unix-like systems I'm not really gaming, and that's before GPU was established.

In the Beginning

Though game development is a not easy, some environment is more easy than another. Especially for beginners without any experience in programming this is of concern. So I think it's time to search the beginners game development environment.

The first thing I noticed is PyGame, a cross-plattform game development library based on Python and built on SDL. It is designed to make game development easy and powerfull, without the need to care about the low-level details of C/C++. PyGame seems to have a great community.

Another thing is the Blitz BASIC compiler, a BASIC dialect designed for game development. It originally came from the Amiga, but today it is cross-plattform available.

Both languages are easy to learn, and have their pros & cons. While Python+PyGame is open source, Blitz BASIC isn't and has a price of 80$ upwards. Blitz BASIC creates compiled code, while Python is an interpreter (but fast) and needs its source code to execute. However, Python is commonly used as additional scripting language for many projects.

For sure there are alternatives to PyGame and Blitz BASIC, but they are definitely a good choice for beginners.

Programming Linux Games for Download

This book is a true classic on Linux game programming. It is written by the creators of SDL and founders of Loki Software, and covers lots of things a game programmer should care about when using Linux & SDL.

Of course you can buy a printed copy of this book, but for all those poor guys there are legel(?) PDF versions of this book available. I found a free e-book copy here, but this can be off another day. Better search on your own.